


Crane's Dignity

by HappyLeech



Series: Gifted Lives [7]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, The unfufilled possibility of kimball/doyle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 21:48:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15470805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyLeech/pseuds/HappyLeech
Summary: Donald Doyle would do anything for Chorus





	Crane's Dignity

Donald Doyle had always known that the planet he loved was going to kill him.

Being on the planet of Chorus meant that your death came sooner than later, and he had no reservations about the fact. When the war had begun, he assumed that he’d die in one of the terrorist bombings that were striking the cities. His family had left the planet as soon as tensions rose, but he was needed. His _Gift_ was needed. So, day in and day out he walked into the tall skyscrapers that the New Republic was oh so fond of targeting, expecting nothing more than a sudden and fiery death.

But as time passed, as battles waged and leaders were assassinated right and left, he found himself as part of the military cog. As the cities were evacuated, he was scooped up and placed in a secretarial role by the people who knew what he could do. He did what he could, fostering leadership with each and every general until there were no more for him to help.

Until Donald Doyle, military aid and man of very little combat experience, became general.

Suddenly he felt the pressure more so than he had before. Before he was the man behind the man, making plans and delivering messages and writing speeches, and now the Federal Army of Chorus expect him to win them the war.

He stands and speaks to the men and faints the minute he’s finished speaking. He meets the mercenary that his predecessor had mentioned but never introduced him to and faints. He awakens in medical and meets one of the only doctors left on the planet and faints again.

Fainting starts to go hand in hand with leadership, he finds.

Then Locus tells him of a downed ship, one of many that the New Republic has shot down, and of the soldiers who survived the crash. Heroes who could help them take down the New Republic once and for all.

He thinks about it, about them storming the ‘Republic and taking down Kimball. He thinks about stepping back and letting these people who put an end to the Freelancer Project take control. He thinks about letting his Gift work for them instead of feeling it stagnate under his skin.

He tells Locus to bring them to him, and realizes too late that he should have specified _how_ to bring them in.

(He thanks any God or Gods listening for Emily’s swift and talented hands as he watches her bring Agent Washington back from the brink.)

There are only three of them, (or is it four, with the robot?) their fellow soldiers, their _friends_ , captives of the New Republic rebels, foul propaganda no doubt being fed to them the second they arrived at whatever hovel they were using for a base.

Agent Washington agrees, reluctantly, to assist in training their troops while Sarge is much more enthusiastic at the thought, and Doyle watches as Washington and Sarge create lesson plans and argue about what to teach. He can feel his Gift reaching out, and smiles when Washington stands, glowing with potential.

For a time, things start to shift. Under Sarge and Washington’s tutelage, with assistance from Donut when he wasn’t boosting moral or offering an ear to the many, _many_ , stressed and overwhelmed troops, the Federal Army of Chorus begins to feel like an army again. Enough so that Doyle leaves the current base they reside in under Emily and Locus’s watchful eyes and travels with a small contingency to their next outpost.

Then, two days later, Locus finds him and delivers the news.

The New Republic attacked only hours after he left. There were no survivors that he could find. The entire compound was slaughtered.

Doyle feels his heart sink, before he pulls himself up by his bootstraps and calls for a speech. It’s full of fire and passion, but when he steps back from the makeshift stage, all he can think is how proud Emily would have been of him for not fainting. She would run her hand up and down his back, laughing as she congratulates him for his newfound strength, even if it was built from sorrow.

He plans the push for Armonia the next day, Locus feeding him the New Republic’s movements, telling him of how their victory has made them brave. Doyle can only think of the rest of the red and blue soldiers trapped in the New Republic’s clutches. Did they know that their ‘saviours’ murdered their friends in cold blood? Or were they not converted to the cause, but made prisoner?

He is alone in his chambers when he speaks out loud and vows to Washington that he will rescue his friends.

(He doesn’t mention that he will die trying, if need be.)

(He doesn’t notice his Gift pulsing.)

The battle for Armonia is dirty, fighting around street corners that Doyle once walked, ducking into shops he frequented to take breaths before popping out into the fray. He’s glad that Donut took the time to drag him to the shooting range every once in a while, and the thought of the man in the pink armour with the ridiculous name makes his lips purse and his hands steady.

He has Kimball in his sights, taking shots at her and clenching his teeth when suddenly a video begins to play. He takes cover behind a piece of construction equipment and holds his breath as the ‘Republic mercenary Felix tells of his and Locus’s plan to bring the end of Chorus.

(Suddenly Locus’s reluctance to take leadership or interact with the troops makes more sense.)

He and Kimball reach a truce before the video even ends, and then it isn’t the Federal Army verse the Republic but a united Chorus verses Space Pirates. He never thought he’d fight alongside anyone from the New Republic, never mind their _leader_ , but together they tear through the mercenaries’ forces like tissue paper and before long Armonia is theirs.

What comes next is almost harder than every battle faced, every skirmish fought. Integration and cooperation between the two forces.

The arguing between him and Kimball is almost enough to make him wish that things were back the way they used to be, the pair of them leading ragtag armies and planning the others demise. Washington, and the other Freelancer agent Carolina, stand in the war room with them and try to mediate, but Doyle can tell that they’re both annoyed by the bickering.

Their soldiers are having an equally hard time, and although he hates having to break up cliques and discipline whole groups, Doyle does take some small joy in seeing that Kimball is also having issues with her people. Luckily for everyone, however, the Federation and Republic’s medical teams get along fine, so long as they ignore the barbs being traded between Emily and Jacobi and focus on their work.

It doesn’t take long before Doyle begins to understand how Washington and Carolina must feel regarding him and Kimball. He’s sitting at his desk, listening while Emily grumbles about Jacobi refusing to share the medical files she’d put together on Sarge, Donut, and Washington’s companions. She complains through a glass of whiskey and bottle of wine, before he looks at the clock, then advises she go spend the rest of her night with Sarge. She takes his advice with drunk aplomb and begins to sing as she leaves his temporary quarters, a quickly refurbished underground bank vault to match Kimball’s across the way.

Kimball opens her door to see what the commotion is, and their eyes meet. He tries to smile and ducks away before she can yell at him for this as well.  He doesn’t expect to hear her nearly-silent chuckle before her door shuts, and he tells himself that the strange feeling in his chest is just his Gift giving Washington a boost for whatever he may be doing.

(The alternative is— well, he’s not going to think about it.)

It takes him an unfortunate and embarrassing number of days to realize that it isn’t Washington who he’s enhancing- it’s _Kimball_. He walks into the war room, notes on a piece of paper to keep his thoughts in place while they argue, and freezes. She looks up at him from where she’s sitting, papers and maps on the table and a handful of their soldiers standing nearby, and he’s hit with déjà vu. If he swapped her out with General Hain, it would be just like his first military posting.

He nearly drops his papers.

The meeting is one of the calmest ones held, and towards the end Carolina and Washington are shooting them both confused looks, Doyle feels like he’s about to pass out, and Kimball…

She looks radiant.

This time it is Emily who listens to him while they drink, and as he mopes and stares into his empty glass, she rests a hand on his arm and smiles. She doesn’t even have to say a word and he bursts into tears, blubbering incoherently into her shoulder. The next day he feels hungover, but he can’t tell if it’s a gin from the night before, or the way that Kimball strides into the room, slams her hands down on the table between them, and reworks his battle plans into something feasible.

Donut corners him later and, as they shoot at targets that Doyle is slowly getting better at hitting, tells him that he needs to talk to Kimball about his Gift and how he feels. His helmet can’t hide his flush, and Donut elbows him the ribs as he mentally agrees to speak with Kimball in private.

But then there’s the sword and talk of a purge and he pushes thoughts of confessing out of mind.

It’s a double of the one Captain Tucker wields, a weapon and alien key, and Doyle knows that if Felix gets his hands on it, it’ll spell doom for them all. So he does what he can to reach it first, claims it for his own, and promptly loses it. He tries to lift the mood by saying that Felix wouldn’t be able to use it once they return to Armonia, only for both Kimball and Emily to give him a dressing down.

He finishes the last of his gin on his own that night and wakes with ink staining his cheek from sleeping at his desk.

There aren’t any meetings planned for the next three days, so he avoids Emily and Kimball, sticking close to Donut and occasionally Captain Caboose. But he isn’t able to stay away forever, not when Felix and Locus invade.

The city is under attack and Doyle watches, dismayed, as coffee shops and department stores and apartment blocks he once walked past become battlegrounds. Being the technical owner of the sword Felix holds means that he, as well as Captain Tucker, are the real targets of the slaughter happening outside. He can’t do anything but watch as their soldiers file out of what was once a library, evacuation of the hospital and the city their plan. He has faith that Jacobi and Emily will get everyone out alive, with Kimball’s lieutenants there to assist.

Speaking of Kimball, she, along with Carolina and Washington, is making her way to the power plant through the maintenance tunnels, explosives in hand.

He hates the thought of the city that was his life for the better part of 30 years being destroyed, but he hates the thought of their people, of the children that are fighting the war now, dying even more.

But the plan doesn’t quiet work out as it should. Their escape vehicle isn’t ready like it was supposed to be, and none of them are good at hiding under pressure, so their quick escape becomes the beginning of a drawn-out firefight.

Felix and Locus and their men know that he and Captain Tucker are there, and if they leave now the plan will be ruined.

He tells, _orders_ , the others to get the pelican working and take off, before calling Washington as he draws the pirates eyes, speeding off through the streets. He has no idea who Sharkface is, and he’s sure that Agent Carolina doesn’t really need any help, but if everyone is together it will make things much easier to evacuate.

Washington calls him right as he pulls into the power plant, and he’s giddy as he begins to push buttons and flip switches. He, alongside Lieutenant Jensen, Kimball, and Lopez had taken a brief tour of the power plant after the armies had merged, to ensure that everything was in working order. And even though ~~Locus~~ there was no one there to translate for them, the three for them had gotten the point when Lopez had pointed at the cooling systems controls and said no over and over again.

It’s not Washington who contacts him next, but Kimball and he’s almost cheery as he goes through warning screen after warning screen, just about ready to put the facility into a meltdown, when—

He ducks under the gunfire and shoots back, but not before the console behind him takes the damage. He looks down at the console aghast even as Kimball worries in his ear, before turning and picking up a grenade gun. The controls are ruined, there’s nothing he can do to set off the explosion and get out safely.

Kimball objects, first trying to tell him that doing so would put the sword into Felix’s hands, then demanding that she be the one to do it. Doyle closes his eyes and crouches low as pirates run into the control room. She sounds like she’s about to cry.

(She’s cried because of him before, but usually out of pure frustration. This time is different. This time it hurts)

She’s still trying to argue with him, even as he hears Carolina drag her onto their ship, and he shoots the grenade onto the reactor core before closing the radio channel and his eyes.

He’s used his Gift for dozens of men and women. From his fellow students during gym class to CEO’s and employers to generals and war heroes. But she, _Vanessa_ , was the only one who truly deserved to utilize his Gift.

He says a silent apology to Emily, to his sisters Katrina and Sophie, to Washington, Donut, and Sarge. Then, he feels his Gift pulsing inside of him and all he can think of is Vanessa. Vanessa Kimball who will win the war, who will bring Chorus back from the brink of destruction, who will rebuild.

Pirates file into the reactor room, their guns pointed at him, but Doyle can only smile.

He’d always known he’d die for the people he loved.

* * *

 

The war is won, and Kimball, _President_ Kimball, stands in front of the Donald Doyle War Memorial in the middle of the new capital of Brioso, a tight feeling in her chest. There’s a cenotaph, listing the names of the hundreds of thousands who died, flanked by sculptures of cranes and lions amongst the garden it rests in. It’s beautiful, but she wishes that Doyle was there to see it too.

“Why the cranes?”

Kimball looks behind herself to Carolina, standing next to the car, playing both bodyguard and friend. “His sisters said he was a crane.”

She hums like she can see it. “And the lions?”

Kimball smiles. “His sisters also said that I was a lion.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea while writing Cat's Blessing, made Nile upset with the idea, and made *sure* that I had to write it. Then I made myself sad when I rewatched Armonia Part 2 for reference. oops  
> Also I can't keep my tenses in check so it might flip-flop between past and present tense and I apologize
> 
> * * *
> 
> * Doyle has the Gift of Crane's Dignity, which allows him to enhance others leadership abilities but not his own  
> * Kimball has the Gift of Lion's Poise, which allows her to keep calm in moments of extreme stress and danger like in a warzone  
> * Doyle knows about his Gift and Greys's  
> * Kimball doesn't know about the Gifts  
> * Doyle fell in love with a lot of ppl- Locus, Emily, Washington, Sarge, Donut, Kimball, Carolina- but he _really_ fell for Kimball  
>  * Somehow, he managed to give Kimball a modified version of his Gift, called Storke's Trust  
> * Kimball tried to apologize to Doyle's sisters (OCs) but they weren't having any of it and just gave her a hug and helped to create the memorial
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Personal Tumblr](http://happyleech.tumblr.com/) / [TextsFromLastNight Red vs Blue Tumblr](https://textsfromchorus.tumblr.com/) / [Gift 'Verse World Building Google Doc](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1euGnfyh6O01P5u5dVyJbNr9yMSwVHwtQ0ay7WU9AJ7A/edit?usp=sharing/)


End file.
